516 THE HOME, FARM AND BUSINESS CYCLOPAEDIA. 



be done, the liquid manure should be collected into a tank, the rain water 

 being excluded, and carted out in showery \veather to the nearest meadow 

 or other field requiring manure. Much catch water from land drainage 

 and brook and river water is of little benefit except in a very dry season, 

 and any outlay required to secure the use of it must be kept within mode- 

 rate limits. When the main drain crosses a road, the water can be very 

 simply utilized, of which there is a good example at the Ontario Experi- 

 mental Farm. 



On the meadows cake and corn may be freely given to sheep, and the 

 troughs regularly moved over the fields, the meadows will be put in high 

 condition, a thick-set fine herbage being obtained in great abundance, 

 with a better result in quality and quantity of produce than can be ob- 

 tained by any other method of manuring. If the meadow be on a warm 

 soil, it is specially desirable to get the land well covered with grass before 

 hot weather comes. Meadows in very high condition on a cool subsoil 

 can be grazed even in April without risk. Meadows and clover set apart 

 for mowing require to be looked over in the spring, all sticks and stones 

 being picked off, and then to be rolled. 



Permanent pastures are therefore sometimes treated as yielding annu- 

 ally several cuttings of green fodder, taken to cattle in yard or stall. 



If ordinary land be seeded according to the tables of the seedsmen with 

 the several sorts of grasses, each of the proper quality, which are found in 

 good pasture, it will after the first free growth for a year or two general^ 

 dimmish in productiveness becoming very disappointing indeed in the 

 5th or 6th year after which, if grazed and manured and liberally treated, 

 it will begin to improve, and may, 8 or 9 years thereafter, attain whatever 

 rank as a pasture shall ultimately belong to it. And if instead of sowing 

 an elaborate mixture of seeds, the common practice be followed of sowing 

 8 or lOlbs. of mixed clover seed, and some 3()lbs, of mixed grasses of un- 

 known composition, along with a barley crop, and the subsequent pasture 

 be afterwards liberally treated mown the first year and thereafter not 

 closely grazed (to which end sheep should not be allowed on it) the land 

 being periodically liberally dressed, and bone-dust or superphosphate being 

 applied the end will be that ultimately a fair pasture will be obtained. 

 This will come about partly through the development of the best grasses 

 which were sown, and partly by the gradual encroachment of the better 

 grasses natural to the soil which have been unable to hold their own, or 

 even to do more than that, under the liberal treatment given. 



The usual practice, however, when it is intended to lay a field down to 

 grass, is, after draining and thorough cultivation, and manuring by means 



